Abstract

Through a number of past experiences, I have found that creativity plays a minimal role in the secondary school music classroom. I believe that this minimal role is the product of music teachers falling into the vortex of practicing and performing, where students have learned to become dependent and conditioned to suppress their creative interests. The nature of this study, therefore, is to situate my experiences with other secondary school teachers currently in the field. Through a mixed method design philosophically rooted in pragmatism, the primary purpose of this study is to determine what role creativity plays in the secondary school music classroom. Specifically, this study consists of fifty-two in-service secondary school music teachers from the province of Ontario, Canada. All participants filled out a Likert scale survey on a number of questions that were designed to ascertain awareness, insights, and perceptions of creativity in the music classroom. In addition, a focus group of five participants was also conducted to generate qualitative data. Findings indicate that participants (a) significantly value the teaching of creativity in and out of the music classroom, (b) acknowledge that the music curriculum itself does not cultivate the teaching of creativity, (c) are not providing opportunities for students to be creative, (d) believe that informal pedagogy cultivates the teaching of creativity considerably more than formal methods of pedagogy, and (e) feel that music teacher training and preparation can be vastly improved with regards to teaching creativity. The educational outcomes of this study shed important light on the nature of learning outcomes in relation to creativity in the secondary school music classroom and beyond.